September 9th: A Nice View, and Chasing Tempo

First off, I thought I’d take a shot of the view I get every time I run in my neighborhood. It’s not a bad pick-me-up when you’re huffing and puffing.

Today, I thought I was going to do a tempo run. I also got guilted into taking the dog with me. (The dog did the guilting.) I hit the end of mile one: 9:25. That is not tempo. Granted, having the dog slows me down a little bit, but I really can’t account for why I was going so slow when I thought I was setting a nice pace. My first mile is always my worst, but I was way slow.

So most of the rest of today’s run was an exercise in chasing the sub-9:00 average. I have to say, the conditions were perfect, except right by the water, where there was a pretty good breeze that actually slowed me down when I was heading into it. I did the down-and-back on the waterview walkway (ssshhh, it’s technically closed since Sandy), then finished my normal loop.

The last half-mile or so, I was really kicking hard -- probably under an 8:00 pace. Final verdict: 4.67 miles, 8:50 pace. Can’t keep that up for 26.1, but by the end, I felt a lot better about things.

Also, I’ve decided that instead of the Atlantic City half, I’m probably going to do a half in Seaside Heights on 10/20. Instead of an overnight -- which would include dinner and a hotel room -- I can just drive down in the morning, do the run and go home. It’ll be good to get a race under my belt so I’m not such a newb come April. It’ll also be good to see how far I’ve gotten with my training by that point.

Tomorrow is likely a strength-training day. Then I think a rest day, and then a pace run on Thursday -- maybe try to go six miles. My long is probably going to be Friday.